Fight 175 – Sylvie Petchrungruang vs Yodying Sor. Sumalee

In my first couple years in Thailand, I fought Yodying a bunch of times. This one was our 12th time in the ring together, although it had been about 4 years since our last meeting. This is the thing about Thailand: rematches. I like them, for the most part, as they force you to grow and change. Once someone knows your game – like, really knows it by experience, not because they “watched tape” of you fighting someone else – they make adjustments and whatever worked for you might not work again. Or it might be harder. Or it might still work but you have to try to push it to a different level nonetheless. That’s why I like rematches. When I was starting in the first years we faced each other frequently, in fact, Yodying broke my nose in our second or third fight together, then my next fight, while the nose was still broken, was against her again. You can’t allow yourself to be scared of someone; you just have to grow, otherwise you’re shrinking. I grew a lot in my fights against Yodying.

When we got to Thapae and I saw Yodying’s name on the card, I was surprised. If I remember correctly, I was supposed to be rematching a different opponent but she was in the hospital and Yodying was a replacement I hadn’t been told about. I was actually excited, because it had been so long since our last fight together and I know that I’ve changed a lot (I moved to Pattaya, I’ve really stepped up my clinch) so this would be an interesting way to gauge that difference. Working my way to the back of the stadium, where we set up the mat, I was greeted by vendors who recognized me and gave me a lot of thumbs up and smiles. At the back of the stadium I saw Paul “the condor” Banasiak (it’s actually “the Reaper,” but same same), who was in Chiang Mai training for an upcoming fight in the US. His energy is a wonderful blend of excitement and calm, which is nice to have around a fight. So, if you’ve got Paul in your corner as a fighter, good call.

Near to where my mat was laid down, Yodying and her older sister, former Northern champion Sudsiam were sitting on a long bench, watching the fights. I had fought Sudsiam as well, and up to that point had never beat her, she’s a few kilos bigger now and both are left handed. I smiled and they smiled back, as did their coach, who I think might be their father. He hadn’t seen me in a million years, either, so who knows what they were expecting. I wasn’t as tattooed the last time I saw them, which is the kind of thing I’m absolutely sure they noted. Sak Yant like this can be seen as quite intimidating to men, let alone to women who aren’t used to seeing them on their opponents, for sure.

I was a little uncomfortable because I’d accidentally left my fight top at home in Pattaya, so I had to go out and buy something I could fight in at a shop just right on our street in Chiang Mai. I think maybe I discovered the top was missing late, so I had very little time to find something (I don’t fight in just a sports bra, although if I did that would be super convenient). So I had this weird gray top in this fight that I think is supposed to be part of a sleeping set and it was much tighter than what I usually wear. Not constricting, but I was aware of it all the time. Once the fight started though, it was off my mind. I remembered that Yodying used to just lay on me in the ropes to snuff out the clinch – with which, I didn’t know how to clinch anyway but she killed what little advantage I did have on the inside with her size. I’ve made adjustments and I’ve also experienced so many fighters of her size now so I knew it would be a different feeling in the ring with her now. See how it goes, eh?

My confidence was pretty good and Daeng was pretty straightforward in what he wanted me to do when he talked to me between rounds. The difference between my strength in the clinch only (as in, no skill but I clinched a lot even before I knew how, just because my strength alone could allow me to work in there) and my strength in clinch with skill and experience now – albeit with so much room still to grow – was significant. I just ground her down. It was informative to feel that in the fight and I think that, even though you can never use any single fight to establish who and what you are as a fighter, this one was illustrative of areas in which I’ve changed a lot. So, that was cool for me.

My Post Fight Video Update – How I Was Feeling

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A 103 lb. (46 kg) female Muay Thai fighter. Originally I trained under Kumron Vaitayanon (Master K) and Kaensak sor. Ploenjit in New Jersey. I then moved to Thailand to train and fight full time in April of 2012, devoting myself to fighting 100 Thai fights, as well as blogging full time. Having surpassed 100 fights in 3 years here, my new goal is to fight an impossible 200 times in Thailand, as much as I possibly can, and to continue to write my experience.

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File this under The Culture of Muay. If you are to understand Muay Thai, I mean really understand it and see how it grew out of Thai society, and the forces that sustain and feed it today, you have to appreciate Fight Culture. It is not just the techniques and gyms that make up Muay Thai in Thailand, but rather a whole system of beliefs and experiences the pull together the karma and excitements of gambling – gambling on contests of body and soul. Part 1 on the Battle Beetles of the North is here: Muay Thai Clinch is Not

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Sylvie’s Tips – Muay Thai Techniques

The cloth training wraps that are so common in the West aren’t necessarily all over the place in Thailand. You can buy them at virtually any shop that sells equipment, sure, but they’re not used by all the Thais training at the camps. A lot of Thai boys don’t wrap their hands at all. Those who do, in my experience, often favor these cloth “fight” wraps that are more like gauze-linen and don’t have a thumb loop or Velcro. The western boxing style training cloth wraps we’re used to are expensive and, the more I’ve trained, the more they seem

After 45 minutes or so of sparring with Den yesterday he finally broke down for me what I was doing wrong with my attempts to land kicks on him. (I landed maybe 5 in that time, although I was able to affect him with my punches when I charged in with flurries; I’m much more comfortable with punches because of my balance, I think.) Den has told me before to shorten my kick because the loping round kick is too slow and easy to see coming, so he just moves out of the way of the kick and then counters

I learned a ton training with Sakmongkol in Pattaya for 7 weeks, as well in my time at Petchrungruang Gym. You can see my daily blog posts of my time with Sakmongkol here if you want to dig into the evolution of my lessons, the posts are pretty detailed with lots of video. Below are the lessons I learned, in particular the lessons or techniques I’m going to consciously work into my training at Lanna, now that I’m back in Chiang Mai. I’ll try to tell you why they were important for me and maybe they could help you, too.

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We got a question on the Muay Thai Roundtable forum the other day that I reckon is a pretty common issue. When I first started taking Muay Thai from Master K, he described the teep as the “electric fence” around every other technique. Teep comes first, basically – the first line of defense and keeping your opponent out of your space until you want them there. And I sucked at teeping for a really long time. It’s only fairly recently, in the last 1.5 years maybe, that my teep has become a favorite technique, and it didn’t become that way because

“Play Knees” – Sylvie’s Tips video above The other day I put up a video of “play knees,” bagwork that Muay Thai legend Sakmongkol taught me at WKO, here in Pattaya. He was displeased with me merely doing counted, repetition knee drills, the traditional Muay Thai camp endless knees on the bag that everyone knows. (These are still good and useful, by the way, just for stamina.) He wanted me to do play knees, to move the bag around in fight simulation action and energy. It was something I’ve never seen before, but I did my best to adopt it.

Above is a little video of how I wrap my hands. I think it’s good to experiment with different kinds of wrap techniques as they have different strengths. It took me a while to settle on this one. Hand size, punching style, the wrap material itself can make a difference – I’ve been liking the longer, softer wraps of Top King and Punish (an Australian company). This wrap technique incorporates an extra padded layer made of a fold of the wrap placed on the knuckles first (for torn up skin, I’ve actually added a cut kitchen sponge for a few

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First off, let me say it: weight, its not that big of a deal. There is a strong caveat to this, which is that it is a definite advantage, but so is height, or knowing the scoring system, or fighting since you were 10, or having a fight on your home turf, and so many other things. So while weight is always a potential advantage, it is just one among many possible advantages. You can beat people who have the weight advantage over you, just like you can with any of those other advantages. I know that in the West

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First a Little Bit About Daeng Daeng is one of the most fight-focused trainers I’ve trained with. When I was training at Lanna Muay Thai in Chiang Mai, it was Daeng who invested the most in diagnosing and fixing weaknesses in my fighting. He wasn’t my main trainer, but he’s a very good teacher and has a keen eye for finding how to improve on existing strengths and correct errors. I’d initially gotten a bit stuck with a technically brilliant but lazy and unmotivated trainer – that guy was a great trainer for some, just not for me – and Daeng

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The Gendered Experience

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In the world of athletics and motivational memes, the word “sacrifice” gets thrown around a lot. All the things that one must sacrifice in the name of greatness, the hardships of waking up to train, missing out on nights of drinking with friends… whatever. I know people use this word without truly dissecting the concept, it’s just part of sport-speak. But I don’t use this word because it means a lot to me. When I think of the word “sacrifice” I think of giving up something of immense value – sacrifice is painful, not unfortunate or just hard. Abraham willing